A bike tour of Humboldt & Logan Square history

by John Greenfield

[This piece also appears in Time Out Chicago magazine, www.timeoutchicago.com.]

Time Out recently invited me to test ride the following bike tour which you can ride in later this month:

GUIDE Chicago Architecture Foundation
LENGTH 3.5 miles, 2 hours
STARTS AT Humboldt Park Boathouse (1401 N. Humboldt Dr.)
NEXT TOUR June 18 at 11am; $15, free for CAF members. Bring your own bicycle and helmet. Future tours TBD.

“We’re going to point out little details you’ve never noticed in buildings you probably go by all the time,” promises Chicago Architecture Foundation (CAF) docent Tom Drebenstedt, straddling an old-school Fuji Sandblaster mountain bike by the stately Humboldt Park Boathouse (1401 N. Humboldt). For years he’s led the CAF’s Bike the Lakefront tour (caf.architecture.org) showcasing the history of Chicago’s shoreline. On this gorgeous spring morning he’s leading me on a new route highlighting Humboldt Park and Logan Square’s architectural gems.


Nearby stands an 1892 statue of Prussian naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt with an adorable bronze lizard crawling on a manuscript by his feet. Crossing von Humboldt’s namesake boulevard to the west side of the park, Drebenstedt points out the man-made river created by Danish immigrant Jens Jensen, who quickly rose up the Chicago Park District’s ranks to become its foremost landscape architect. Recently the park district installed solar- and wind-powered pumps to create a current and prevent stagnation.


Two blocks south is the circular rose garden Jensen designed, flanked by bronze bison and Japanese-inspired light fixtures. I suspect that two men in hoodies lurking beneath the trellis on the far side of the garden are doing a drug deal. We roll across Division Street to the 1895 Humboldt Park Stables (1150 N. Humboldt), with Hansel-and-Gretel-esque gables and half timbers, slated to re-open as the Institute for Puerto Rican Arts and Culture.

Humboldt Park Stables - Jens Jensen's office was in corner turret

Rolling north along the park’s perimeter trails, we startle a pair of young women sashaying down the path, then catch a whiff of roast pork from La Esquina del Sabor food truck (1500 N. Humboldt). Drebenstedt pulls over at North/Humboldt by a kiosk outlining the development of the Boulevard System. In 1870 the West Park District hired architect William Le Baron Jenney to design the major western parks, including Humboldt, and tree-lined thoroughfares to connect them.

As we pedal north up the quiet service drive along Humboldt Boulevard Drebenstedt points out the occasional mid-1800s wood-frame house. “If you ignore all the other buildings around them you get a sense of what it was like then – farm houses in the middle of a prairie.” Bicycle magnate Ignaz Schwinn’s mansion used to stand at the southwest corner of Humboldt and Palmer, and bike racers competed on the oval-shaped roadways around Palmer Square Park (2100 N. Humboldt).


The traffic circle at Logan/Milwaukee features Henry Bacon’s eagle-topped Illinois Centennial Monument, dedicated in 1918. We spin east to the John Rath House (2703 W. Logan), designed by George Maher in 1907. Drebenstedt tells me it’s one of the best Prairie-style homes in the neighborhood, incorporating the long, narrow “Roman bricks” favored by Frank Lloyd Wright, gracefully curved “barrel vaults” and leaded glass with floral motifs.


Making our way south to Humboldt Park we check out twin mansions at 3069 and 3071 W. Palmer, built at the turn of the century for two men who co-owned a tannery. One house is drab beige brick but the other is now painted with cheerful scarlet and green accents.


Back in the park Drebenstedt points out a 1901 bronze sculpture of Viking explorer Leif Erikson (1400 N. Humboldt), sculpted by Sigvald Asbjornsen, and bankrolled by the local Norwegian community. At the boathouse, old men fish off a pier at the north side of the building with the Sears Tower looming in the distance. Although I’ve lived in Logan for years, I feel like I’ve just seen the neighborhood in a whole new way.

Cyclists bring a "home zone" to Logan Square

2400 Block of N. Albany

by John Greenfield

[This article also runs in the May 20 edition of Time Out Chicago, www.timeoutchicago.com.]

Logan Square is poised to get Chicago’s first “home zone.” The European concept tames traffic and creates green space on a street, fostering a safe, friendly environment for walking, biking, playing and socializing. But it might never have happened if a critical mass of cycling activists hadn’t settled on the 2400 block of North Albany Avenue.

After years of effort, the group is nearing final approval for its proposal to slow the drivers who speed through the angled residential street between Kedzie and Fullerton Avenues. The plan would switch parking from parallel to diagonal spaces and add bulbouts (sidewalk extensions), creating a narrow, winding travel lane while accommodating playground equipment and community gardens. Similar vehicle-control features and public-use spaces can be seen in Lincoln Square’s Giddings Plaza and near Uptown’s Truman College campus. But, as a block tailored to its residents’ needs, the Albany Home Zone is unprecedented in Chicago.

It’s no coincidence the idea came from this block, a magnet for movers and shakers in the green-transportation scene. Most are friends who met in the ’90s through the monthly Critical Mass bike parade. Past and present residents include the owner of Boulevard Bikes; staff from the Active Transportation Alliance and Chicago Department of Transportation’s (CDOT) Bicycle Program; the director of West Town Bikes; a founder of Yojimbo’s Track Cats, a youth bicycle racing program; and the director of the Center for Neighborhood Technology, an environmental group that promotes enviro-friendly transportation options.

“I like living here because it’s totally normal to ride your bike everywhere you go and worry about the welfare of the city and the environment,” says John Edel, a green developer who lives on Albany with wife Julie Dworkin and kids Zoe, 4, and Miles, 1. His biking buddy Gareth Newfield bought a two-flat here first, in 1989. In the mid-’90s, Edel and fellow cyclist Craig Luddington purchased buildings on the street, inviting their pedaling pals to move in as tenants. “At one point, I counted 23 folks on the block who rode all the time,” Luddington says.

Two of them were transportation planner Lisa Phillips and her husband, Todd Gee. After their daughter Violet, now 2, was born, they grew concerned about the danger that speeding cars posed to children on the block. “It’s not that we wanted to turn the street into a playground,” Phillips says, “but if a kid does get into the street, 20 mph versus 40 could mean the difference between life and death.”

In May 2007, Dworkin caught a presentation on home zones at the Active Transportation Alliance. “I thought, We’ve got to do this,” she recalls. Dworkin and several others brainstormed, drew up plans and promoted the concept to neighbors with meetings, a block party and a website, albanyhomezone.org.

Proposed design for the Albany Home Zone

When they presented their idea to 35th Ward Ald. Rey Colon the following year, he was all ears. “Our community is above the national norm for obesity, so we want to get people walking and biking however we can,” he says. “And a lot of folks on the block are environmentalists, so this is a good fit.”

The Albany Home Zone committee met with CDOT engineers who agreed to edit their designs to meet city specs. Last month, after several revisions, CDOT offered a design that balances the cyclists’ wish for more green space with their neighbors’ parking worries; only two parking spaces will be sacrificed.

Colon has even agreed to foot the bill—an estimated $100,000 to $150,000—with ward funds, provided the advocates get support from 70 percent of the block’s residents. Phillips believes they can gather the signatures by the end of May so CDOT can start construction next year. “We just need to convince people the benefits are going to outweigh losing a little parking,” she says.

A memorial for Blanca Ocasio

by John Greenfield

On Thursday, September 11, over 150 relatives, friends and neighbors gathered in Logan Square to honor Blanca Ocasio, placing a “ghost bike” at Armitage and Kedzie where she was struck one year ago. Ocasio, a 19-year-old pharmacy student nicknamed “Chi-chi,” was pedaling eastbound on Armitage when a garbage truck overtook her and swung south onto Kedzie, trapping her underneath.

Six months later schoolteacher Amanda Annis, 24, was killed on her bike at the same location after a car ran a red. The advocacy group Logan Square Walks is lobbying for safety improvements at the intersection such as adding a red light camera, tightening curb radii and striping bike lanes; workers recently repainted the crosswalks and stop bars.

Ocasio’s family requested the memorial from Chicago Ghost Bikes, which has installed several other tributes to fallen cyclists. The crowd assembled at Palmer Square, two blocks north of the intersection, many wearing t-shirts with Ocasio’s image and messages like “Lost a friend but gained and angel,” and “R.I.P. Chi-chi girl.” Blanca’s father Ramon told them, “As she looks down from heaven at us I know that she’s smiling,” urging them to be careful when driving.

Her loved ones then walked with lit prayer candles to the crash site, followed by dozens of cyclists walking their vehicles. After the white bike was chained to a light pole, mourners added candles and flowers. Chicago Ghost Bikes’ Howard Kaplan hoped the event provides closure for Ocasio’s family, adding “They probably feel they’re a little less alone with their loss.”